


An Unneeded Apology

by LittleSweetCheeks



Series: While We Sleep [10]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Dreams, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 02:26:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13777722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSweetCheeks/pseuds/LittleSweetCheeks
Summary: It was weird, being on the other side.





	An Unneeded Apology

“Hey Dad?” Jack’s voice filtered out from the back of a closet.

“Yes?” Aaron tried to locate where his son was calling out to him from. “Where are you?”

“In here.” He crawled out, dragging a cardboard box behind him. “Did you know there was still a taped-up box in here?”

“I-” In the doorway, he was frozen.

“I wonder what’s in it.” Jack started to pull the top open.

Aaron didn’t have to wonder, he knew what was in the box. It was the last of the things from his old work office. The most personal things. He watched in silence as Jack pulled out an assortment of small items, a coffee mug, a few books, some photos, a small statue that has sat on his window ledge for a long time.

“What is all this?”

“It’s stuff that was in my office at the Bureau.”

“But I thought we emptied all those ages ago.”

Not sure how to respond, he just shrugged.

Jack held up the statue. “Did someone give you this?”

“Emily, actually. I guess I’d been grumpy. She saw it in an airport and gave it to me.” He took it from his son, remembering the look of impish delight on the brunette woman’s face as she handed it over.

“Oh. And this other stuff? It’s all stuff they gave you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’s it still in this box?”

Aaron took a deep breath. “I couldn’t bear to see it every day. I don’t question that what I did for you was for the best, but it still hurt a lot to walk away from the only other family I had. After… After your mom died, we had Jess, and she’s always been a saint, but them…” He waved at the box. “You don’t know half of what they’ve done to help you and me since then. I’m sure _I_ don’t even know everything.”

Jack was still digging through the box and stopped, pulling out a plush gray wolf with big, sparkly blue eyes. “Let me guess… Penelope?” He grinned when his dad nodded. “It’s cute. And…it suits you, I guess. Mind if I keep digging?”

“Sure, knock yourself out.” Aaron took the little statue and headed to his home office, setting the frowning man on the edge of the desk. He’d never had the opportunity to see what Emily had made of the place, though he could take a few guesses. Rocking his chair slowly side to side, he tried to imagine it.

==

Aaron felt odd, walking through the sixth floor after so much time had passed. He’d expected more to have changed, but it all looked just as he’d remembered it.

Through his office window, he could see someone at his desk, hunched over and working. Taking the stairs, he moved to the doorway, surprised to see it was Emily. “Oh.” He said softly, startling her and making her look up. The room was still the same color and laid out the same, but his law books had been replaced with other books, from what he could see not all of them were in English. Where his awards once stood were different ones now, along with different photos and other mementos.

“There you are. Come sit down.”

Her voice broke his thoughts and he obeyed before realizing he was in a role reversal now. She behind the desk and he here.

“What brings you here?”

“Uh… I’m not sure.”

“Hotch… Come on. You wouldn’t come all the way here for no reason. What’s up?”

Instead of answering right away, he just studied her. The tired lines in her face, the slight sag to her shoulders, and the creases in her shirt and jacket. She’d been there for hours. “How long have you been here?”

She hesitated, too many possible answers to his question. “Today or…”

“Today.”

Emily checked her watch. “Sixteen hours.”

“Why?”

“Really? You know this job.” She put her pen down.

“How many times this month have you spent the night?”

She hesitated, surprised and not. “Six, so far.”

Aaron nodded. “My record in a given month was seventeen. The number of sixteen hour or more days was…uncountable.”

“While Haley and Jack were gone.” She stated.

“No.” He shook his head. “After…after you died…But before JJ came back. I managed seventeen days before JJ worked out what I was doing, I hadn’t told Jack you were dead because of Haley and… She started making Garcia monitor my card swipe times in and out of the building.”

Emily grinned, that sounded exactly like her friends.

“You look good behind that desk, it suits you.”

“Yeah, well, the job sort of just landed in my lap without warning.” She smiled to soften the barb. “The last guy left without notice and left me some pretty massive shoes to fill. Not to mention an entire binder of things to know about running the team.”

“I hope it helped.”

“It has. You just left out one thing.”

“What’s that?” He gave her a confused look.

“How the hell did you get Dave to behave?”

He barked out a laugh despite himself. “Bribery and blackmail.”

“That’s it?” She saw him nod. “And all this time I thought you were just better than me at this.”

“I doubt that.”

“Over a decade, Hotch, that you did this particular job. That puts you up there with the legends, you know.”

“No. It was always all of you. And… I’m sorry. About forcing it on you. I didn’t want to worry about them hiring from the outside and splitting you all up.” He drew a deep breath. “I felt so guilty, leaving you guys. I’ve spent so much time trying to find another way I could have done things and not abandoned you. You all always harped on me that we were in it together, that an attack on any of us was an attack on all of us and… I ran. When I should have stayed and let you help me fight…I ran.”

“Hotch, Aaron, stop. You didn’t abandon us and you’re right, an attack on you is an attack on us all. But it had to be this way and really, after everything this job has done to you? Maybe it was time to stop before it killed you.”

“It wouldn’t have killed me.”

It was her turn to sigh, in frustration as she flopped back in her chair. “It was killing you, and you know it. Not to mention it was another man hell-bent on orphaning Jack. And if he didn’t succeed, there was still the fact that you know good and well your doctors had been warning you to quit before the stress did you in for good.”

He was alarmed. “How do you know about that?” He snapped.

Her forehead thumped on the wood desktop. “Now I know why Dave drinks.”

“What?”

She slowly sat back up. “You. Don’t you see yet?”

“See what?”

“Dear lord, Aaron, don’t you get it? We’re your family! We would rather you be alive in France than dead in DC!”

He froze. He recognized the words, he’d said them once himself. To her. “You heard me?

She shot him a look but didn’t answer.

“Saving you was more important than…”

“Than what, Hotch? Saving you? Why? Because you are somehow less important?”

“I know Jack needs me…”

“We _all_ need you, you giant lug! I will never understand why you value yourself so low. It is easier to go on knowing you’re out there than knowing you’re dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Never doing it right.”

“Doing what right?”

“Anything.”

She waited until he finally looked up before responding. “You are human, Aaron, but you have done a ton of good in this world. You. And you deserve to have years left to enjoy doing something else.”

“It’s lonely sometimes.” He confessed.

“Oh.” There was sarcasm dripping from her words. “It really is a shame, then, that we live in this world now, devoid of things like phones and email and social media.”

He blushed, she had a point. He was just as capable of reaching out as they were.

“I know I’m right.” She grinned, checking her watch again. “Look, Aaron. I’ve always known this wasn’t how you wanted it to go down, how you wanted to pass the torch, but it’s how it ended, so we all rolled with it. We’re pretty good at that. You know why?”

“Because our job sucks?”

“Well, that. And because for years we had a wonderful leader who taught us to roll with it. Now, I have work to do if I want to ever get home, you should go, you’ll have to wake up soon and help Jack put the stuff out from that box, because you know he’ll want to.”

“Stuff? Box? Wake up?”

She laughed, waving him away. “Good luck, Aaron. Don’t be a stranger.”


End file.
